Roar.

You told me

I wasn’t allowed to "lose my loud,"

that if quiet ever claimed me,

I would come undone.

That the marrow of who I am

lives in the clatter,

the echo,

the avalanche of words

I’ve never known how to bury.

You said silence would hollow me,

leave only an outline,

a shadow of a girl

who once burned so bright

the room itself

couldn’t look away.

And maybe you were right.

Because my loud

isn’t just volume,

it’s the pulse under my skin,

the lightning braided into every nerve.

It’s the storm I was born carrying,

the flood no dam could tame.

And if it ever goes still—

if the thunder rests,

if the waves calm—

know this:

it’s not disappearance.

It’s only the inhale

before another roar.